The present invention relates to a table apparatus identifying method and a medical imaging apparatus, and more particularly to a method of identifying a table apparatus having a plurality of movable portions that are movable in the respective axial directions, respectively, and a medical imaging apparatus having the table apparatus.
In a PET-CT device that combines a PET (position emission tomography) device with an X ray CT (computed tomography) device together, there is used a table apparatus having a plurality of movable portions that are movable, independently (for example, refer to Patent Document 1).
As the plurality of movable portions, for example, there are a cradle that supports and moves an object to be detected in a horizontal direction, an intermediate support: IMS) that supports and moves the cradle in the horizontal direction, an elevation that supports and moves the IMS in a vertical direction, and a transporter that supports and moves the elevation in the horizontal direction.
In the table apparatus, the apparatus is identified before operation. The apparatus is identified by confirmation of the characterization and the configuration of the apparatus.
The characterization is conducted by correcting a measured value of a distance measurement system in the movable portions of the respective axes. The measured value is corrected in such a manner that pins are manually inserted into holes that are defined in predetermined two positions along the movement axis, respectively, the outputs of an encoder when the movement of the movable portions is blocked by those pins are read, respectively, and the correction is conducted by using those read values and a distance between those pin holes which is known in advance.
The configuration is confirmed by electrically reading the type of the configuration pins that are inserted into an interface board. The configuration pins are prepared for each type of the configurations, and an appropriate pin is inserted into the interface board.
[PATENT DOCUMENT 1] JP 2002-330960
The table apparatus using the above method takes time and labor since manual works are required. Moreover, the reliability of the apparatus identification depends on the skill of a worker.